Board of County Commissioners Regular and Meetings - Special Meeting

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to this special meeting of the Lake County Board of Commissioners. It's June 9th, 2026 at 9.02 AM. This is a reminder to please turn off or silence your cell phones. We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, Should we approve the agenda?

I will make a motion to approve the agenda.

Seconded.

To vote?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Community information items. I have none this morning. Elsa, would you like to go next?

I have none.

Okay.

Great, because I have a bunch. Okay, so I would like to acknowledge the improvements in the working relationship and collaboration and partnership between Lake County and the City of Leadville. We've come a long way there. A little bit of that was on display last night at the planning and zoning going through our joint one community project. Why am I forgetting the three letters for it right now? The OCP, the joint plan for the county and the city. 16082389231190190190190190190190190 her time with the city and her working with us. It was really great working with her. And I wish her the best since she has resigned from her position to pursue greener pastures. And it was great having a good working relationship with the city on a multitude of projects. And I would like to welcome Police Chief Dan Trelka as the interim City manager and just express that we're looking forward to continued working relationships and getting things done with those guys too so shout out to lori thanks for your service to the Community you'll be missed. The other Community information item I wanted to touch on. was to provide some clarification regarding recent community discussions and questions about Harrison Field. The park remains open to the public and members of the public may continue to use the field at their own discretion and risk. Due to the limited maintenance capacity and deferred maintenance at the park, The all county sponsored recreation activities were what was discontinued at Harrison field it's not closed down it's not being sold to developers, there are no current plans at this time to do anything with Harrison field. As part of an ongoing asset management effort, Lake County is in the early stages of conducting a comprehensive review of all of our county-owned facilities and infrastructure, including parks and recreational facilities, roads, buildings, and other public assets. This process will help identify the maintenance needs and estimate future costs and support informed decisions regarding long-term investments in county facilities. We do appreciate the community's interest in Harrison Field and encourage anyone with questions or concerns to attend a public meeting or contact county staff directly for the most up-to-date information. Please don't get your facts off Facebook. It causes issues. All right, I think that's a laugh.

Thank you, Commissioner Lee. This is a reminder that all regular meetings and work sessions are recorded and available on the Lake County Government YouTube channel. They are transcribed and indexed as well. The recordings can be watched at a time that's best for you. Subscribe and stay informed on council decisions. We'll now move into the public comment portion of this meeting. Public comment is available for residents wishing to speak on an agenda item or another issue not on the agenda. To make a public comment, residents may request to speak by raising your hand in person, using the raise hand feature in Zoom, or sending a message in chat. Anybody in the room like to make a comment this morning? Please just state your name for the record.

Sure. Sarah . I'd like to comment on the, I'm sorry, I don't understand what part of the process you're in on the Reg 43 adoption in the new state regs. revisions but in reviewing some of the revised documents provided to you all it seems that there still might be some problems at least from what I understood at the time of talking to the state with referring in the document to variances as well it looks like your Appendix A, which is kind of what I'm calling like a cover sheet or it's a crosswalk that the state has asked for from counties, checks off prohibiting new vault toilets and new privy toilets. So that seems confusing to me given all the conversations that I've had with you all regarding legislation as well as your desire to change your code

Can you specifically say which section?

I don't know if the appendix is attached to that new draft, but it should be Appendix A. And then the section is really Section 1 that pulled a lot of the language. And these are things we talked about in our variance hearing. It pulls a lot of the language for the variance process that is offered by the state. And I could be wrong, but as far as was communicated to me from the state is not necessarily the strict process we all must follow if you are allowing and creating some other processes and regulations locally. So it's my opinion that some of that language in there is still pulled kind of out of context the DOCC has been discussing and might cause you problems.

I read that and felt like it was, I read it over and over and over again, and we'll talk about it in part two, but I did not see a problem where we couldn't actually approve the ball toilet. So just to, that was my reading, but we can talk about it also when we get there.

1.2 section 3 I think is what I think our intention is to allow them so if that needs to be corrected we'll certainly correct it and that was the direction that was the meeting last night I think was headed in so yeah that was one of the bullet points was to make it easier or allowable whereas previously but if we've got language in there that's contradictory we definitely want to flag that and take a little bit closer look at that

And I think, I don't know if we want to talk about this right now, because it is one of your agenda items, but Torsten and I can address this issue when we'd like.

Yeah, do we want to go into further depth during the agenda item on that? Let's do it.

Thank you, Sarah.

Thank you.

Anybody else in the room have public comment? Anybody online or in the chat? Seeing none, we'll move on to item number one, discussion and consideration of Resolution 2026-21, a resolution adopting the Xcel Energy Service Facility Development Agreement. This will be led by Melissa Kendrick, our Community Planning Development Deputy Director. Good morning, Melissa.

Good morning. Good morning. This is kind of a companion to the development agreement that you heard in Peru a few weeks ago. And in that development agreement, it requires this resolution, and it wasn't with it that day. So this is a bit of a housekeeping matter. The development agreement is part of the implementation of the Excel Service Center. It's actually under construction right now. So all of these pieces fit together. We have one more piece that you will see coming up. But again, this is companion to the development agreement. So I can explain that further, or Matt can if you have questions.

I have none. Who do I?

I have none.

I will move to adopt Resolution 2026-21, a resolution adopting the Xcel Energy Service Facilities Development Agreement.

I will second that. To a vote. Aye. Aye. Thank you, Melissa. Item number two on our agenda is discussion and consideration of resolution 2026-22, a resolution adopting the revised 2026 Lake County on-site wastewater treatment system, referred to as the OWTS regulations. This is led by Melissa Kendrick, probably.

Yes, and Torsten.

Okay, thank you Torsten. Yeah, so I believe it was back in April, April 19th, we had the open discussion about approving these regulations already. And in that I kind of explained that in this process we're really trying to get ourselves in line with the updated state regulations. We have until June 15th to have these approved and effective. It also was discussed that in our moratorium we're going to look further into alternative sanitation methods such as vault privies, vault holding toilets, composting considering toilets. We just want to take a little bit more time to understand how to oversee those and how different counties have been regulating those. So that's kind of why it's not been addressed in this adoption. We really just want to be compliant with the state on time here. And we've had the public discussion during that April 19th hearing. That was brought up a little bit, I believe, during that time. That's kind of where I explained a little bit more of the moratorium work that we're going through. Really, we're looking just for approval of the resolution that we devoted on during the April 19th hearing. I'm here for any other questions. I'm absolutely able to answer anything. But we're kind of to the point.

Thank you. In Section 1.3 , we reference Appendix A at the end of it. And where's Appendix A? It's in the packet. It wasn't attached. It's not attached to the Exhibit A?

Torsten, I have a question. In Section 1.2 , which I think is what Sarah brought up, We can have vault toilets based on still with variances. My question is, I think we kind of got into it a little earlier, but there is the limited use occupancy that I had a question about when there is a structure or dwelling on less than a full-time year-round basis, i.e. no more than 90 consecutive days or total occupancy of 180 days per year. Is that something we can be more that to me would be in conflict with the proposed use as we talked about last night where somebody could have multi-season facilities use of a vault toilet and say like a primitive camp ground right so is this something that we could change to change the occupancy, or is this one of those things that the state, we can only be more restrictive than the state?

So the limited use occupancy more so aligns with our land use code, I believe. That's pretty specifically for backcountry structures, which we've had a lot of interest in recently. We've had a couple of variants over the last year. Backcountry structures with the land use code are limited to that occupancy, but we're kind of just aligning ourselves with that.

Okay, so it's only it's only situations that fall under the limited use occupancy. And for Lake County, that is only backcountry that would fall under that.

Yeah, there's still other variants that you can allow for, but that specific language was for protecting the backcountry.

Okay, cool. Great. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Yeah, so I hope it's clear. We're sort of doing this in two steps, which seems a little cumbersome at the moment. But again, compliance with the state is really important. And a lot of those changes are really very minor. On this other issue related to allowing ball pretties, particularly commercial, not residential, but commercial, is something we deliberated last night. And we will work our way through that process and then amend the code as you decide .

The land use code.

The land use code. Okay. Yeah. Which will include the OWTS regulations. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I think we're getting there. It's just a two-step process.

Right.

So. Yeah, great. Okay.

Right now we're on a deadline.

We are. We're going to hit the deadline. All right.

Assuming this all goes well here.

My other question is, I didn't write down the section well enough. Section B, when it comes to site evaluations, I wrote down 43.5. It's about the site and soil evaluations. And we kind of talked about it last night, just when it comes to cost burden. How expensive is it, these site and soil evaluations for people to get done?

Just a curiosity. That I wouldn't know off the top of my head. That is done by an engineering firm usually. Soil engineers come in and basically dig a hole in the ground to understand the layers of the soil we have. That's so that they can get engineering designs, they can properly know the long-term acceptance rate of the soil for a soil treatment area. That's standard with profiles and what's going on in the long-term acceptance rate. If I were to give it a guess, I would probably say around $5,000 just for the soil evaluation prior to getting me into new designs. Thank you. It's between $2,500 on the low end and $10,000 on the high end, so depending on who you hire.

But it can be done as little as $2,500 for a super rubber stamp. A little more complicated. You can get a more layered, nuanced plan for $10,000. I think so. Yeah. Well, I have no other questions about that.

So, okay, I've flipped through all 15 pages of the regulation. What page is Appendix A on?

It's in the packet. It's not in the document. It's in the packet, and it's called... What was the Exhibit A? Yeah.

Exhibit A is at the top of the...

It's called Lake County OWTS Regulations... Exhibit A. Exhibit A.

Is Exhibit A Appendix A? Why is it called two different things? That's what threw me for a loop on this. I've been hunting for Appendix A for a couple days. I'm like, where is Appendix A? Because that's where we deviate from the state regulations where we have opted to be more stringent on certain aspects. I just want to make sure after some things were pointed out about do we have contradictory language about the vault toilets that will make it like what our goal is to make it easier for vault toilets to happen. But it's been brought up to us that there might be some conflicting language. I'm trying to find it and I'm at a loss. So if anyone sees a section or a line in there that is going against the goals that we're trying to accomplish here,

I'm not seeing it so I've read through all this and I didn't see anything that said for the variance so the intent of this iteration of the regulations are to become compliant with the state requirements so the moratorium is informing a future Potential modification to the regulations, you know like what we talked about last night, right? So we'll directly talk about that, but I don't feel there's anything in there that would preclude a potential edit to these to allow a no WTS to be a conform or excuse me a Vault to be a conforming system for certain uses in the future but this is to meet the state requirements and then moving forward we would we are considering another a amendment to the regs for what we've been talking about in that. And of course, go ahead.

Yeah, just for your question to page two of the appendix, line or section two is where we are prohibiting installation of new vault privies. And that's just referencing section 1.2 . Yeah, so that's just our in the appendix there.

different differing language in there it's just the decisions that we've been allowed by the state okay got it and then that in the land use code we it's not the land use code will um the regulations will inform the land use code so part of the land use code um potential amendments coming out of the moratorium will make sure that the owts regulations align with that

Did you want to say something, Sarah?

I was just curious why you would check not allowed if you are allowing it.

What's that?

I said I was curious why you would check not allowed, which is different from the 2018 documents submitted to the state, if you are allowing these and would go through variance processes or local processes to allow them.

Yes, I have a question. Why is it a default not allowed but through variance you can? How do we explain that in the table?

I would defer to Torsten on that particular item, but what the intention coming up is that they are still allowed by variance for this period of time up until we finish the moratorium. So they are still allowed by variance. It's just that there is the variance process that's required.

I do see what Sarah is speaking about here. In the previous iteration, last amended in 2024, it says all previous new allowed with the variance instead of just prohibited. But with speaking to this state the way I have it in the new regulations, referring to Section 1.2 or allowed with a variance. But allowed with my variance.

And it's not clear in the table. And the table's meant to be usable, right? So that people can look at it and be like, oh, is this allowed? Is this not allowed? So maybe Sarah's point going back to that? Absolutely. Making that not clear.

Absolutely. We can edit that without getting in trouble with the state.

We will send a final revision to the state. OK, final review.

We just have to get that into them prior to the 15th. So, yes, absolutely. It will be consistent with what it was last time. So to be completely transparent and make sure that it's consistent, we can do that.

Good catch, Sarah.

Does that address your issue, Sarah, or would you like to?

I suppose so. I think that that's a better overall way to communicate what the intentions are and if what I'm understanding correctly is that this whole document might be revised again once you go through the moratorium I assume that maybe some of those sightings of the local regs would also be changed to look at new drafted regulations and processes because the language that remains in there and is cited in that appendix is the very language that was pointed to through our experience of our variants is to not allow that. So that language remains in your document. And I just think that that's problematic.

Yeah.

I would totally agree that that is the case, that this iteration doesn't change, that there is a variance process required. And so, but as I think that we were talking about when we had the public hearing on the regulations, this was to become compliant with the state requirements and that the moratorium would inform those future revisions. So, yes, you're correct.

We will be coming back to this.

Okay.

all right uh agenda item number two discussion i would move to approve resolution 2026-22 a resolution adopting the revised lake county on-site wastewater treatment system regulations moving on thank you all for that

Number three, discussion and consideration of Resolution 2026-23, a resolution to rescind the Stage 1 fire restrictions established under Resolution 2026-19 in the unincorporated areas of Lake County. This would be led by Candice Bryans, our County Manager.

So, Right as we are moving out of stage one fire restrictions, and thank you Heath for joining, I'm gonna let him jump in here too, we're actually back in them.

Yeah, I noticed that.

But we did still want to have a conversation with you all about the fire restrictions. And so I spoke with Heath yesterday and asked if he would jump on since he's really a little more involved with determining alongside you guys what restrictions we're in. Heath, are you okay to jump on?

Good morning, Heath. Can you hear us?

You're muted if you... Yeah, I had noticed, you know, we had just gotten the Forest Service email on June 4th. Suggesting that I mean while down valleys looking a little bit better off than we are as far as the thousand hundred hour fuels Or ten thousand hour thousand hour fuels if I'm saying that correctly Up here in Lake County. We're looking a little bit on the drier side of things We do have an expert in the room actually you could probably chime in as well should they choose But we had just gotten an email that you know Lake County should probably go back into high fire danger based on the stats from he's right here Okay.

Who is that? That's a job skill. Good morning. Good morning.

So I've heard nothing so far. I'm trying to keep my speed here to work. Why don't you start? We haven't talked yet. Do you want to?

I'll just say where we're at. We're doing, you know, the Agenda item three, and we're actually passing the resolution that rescinds the fire ban, but this is like just a couple of days after the Forest Service, Chris Naccarato's last email suggesting we go back into high fire danger here. So it was sort of like, geez, we're pretty wonky and out of balance with this. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, as Chris has mentioned, he's 25 years of doing this job that these are abnormal conditions he hasn't seen before. I think it's important for us to be kind of flexible with making the right decision. He actually recommended we go into a Stage 1 restriction, which we communicated with the public last night, that we go back into Stage 1 restrictions, even though we came out of them at the same time Forest Service has. He is going to advocate to his leadership that Forest Service also goes into a Stage 1 restriction, so there's a potential that they go back into Stage 1 also. But he made the recommendation to us that we go ahead and do that as soon as possible, because we are meeting the criteria.

And that's what we use as our case to go into a restriction or not, is if we hit three out of the seven criteria, which we're at right now.

So the recommendation is to not resend stage one restrictions and just stay in stage one. I agree.

Last week at CCI, all the counties of Colorado come together. And then for a morning, the regions get together and the mountain region got together. And this was our main topic was fire restrictions. And it went from like policy and ordinances to working with you, with your sheriff too. I would, I would not to be dramatic, but like, please from our surrounding commissioners to act more as one to send the region in and out of stage one. And because of the way that these natural resources push people around the region, and the way that they all talk to each other online, to be able to figure out why you can and can't burn. And I just wanted to make sure I was passing that on, that it's just because our fuels can handle it. And this is where, I mean, it's worth talking to the Forest Service about too. at the Forest Health Council tomorrow, but an example that made sense to me was the Clear Creek Reservoir being closed down for water issues. It's going to push campers up to us. It's the same thing with fire restrictions. If we don't allow fire in a certain area, you know it pushes people around. Anyway, so most people in our region have not even had the opportunity to move out of stage one or even stage two some of them have been in stage two for a while and they are pleading that people don't move out of stage one for the summer so just wanted to pass that yeah i appreciate that and we have passed an ordinance that allows us to consider more than just the fuel samples the forest services yeah yeah i think it is important to consider all those different aspects yeah

And we have better communications on the Chaffey County primarily.

I don't know what other counties you're considering. Could it be mountain regions that are county specific?

It's Park, Eagle, Summit, Grand, Fremont, Chaffey, Sawatch, and one other that is almost front range. Who is east of? East of Park, I guess, is Jefferson. But anyway, that's the map. I'm just saying those are the people in the room that all the commissioners were like, help us, help us.

And their guidance was we should move more as a region together.

Their request was that we do that to keep people from moving around as much and feeling as though there were pockets where they could burn in our area, I think was the thought.

Yeah, because the idea is if we're

County's not a restriction, all the other counties are.

Everybody comes here, fire from here and back down the whole entire region. Right. Understood.

Yeah, thanks. That wouldn't be just aimed at us. I think I've noticed other neighboring counties not being in stage one when we went ahead and moved into stage one.

Yeah, it was not directed at us. For sure. It was a plea to everybody.

The only things with that that I would take a little bit of pause to consider is that you can't paint the entire mountain region with one brush. There are areas that are going to get significantly more moisture than other areas, you know, and in the event of a major series of heavy moisture weather patterns, you know, it might really tip the scales in favor of coming out of the fire ban, which Does that, what's the workload look like for you guys when we are in a fire ban versus, you know, like if we're in a fire ban and we're getting poured on, but we're just staying in there because of neighboring counties, does that add more to your guys' plate? Maybe, I wouldn't say no. I would say no.

Maybe more to dispatch. They're probably going to receive a lot of calls that they'll have to navigate, so probably additional workload to dispatch. I think it's where, like in the current situation where we're now, we're going into a state one restriction, Forest Service is not. That would increase our workload because we're going to get a lot of phone calls. There's a campfire in Forest Service, but there's no restrictions in Forest Service. So we're going to have to respond to those calls and figure out, okay, we're here. You guys are actually allowed to have this.

And there's going to be public confusion when we're not in direct alignment with our federal partners. And that's why we want to stay in alignment with those guys to avoid the patchwork boundaries.

extreme heat and extreme moisture at the same time.

Wasn't Chris specifically talking about the difference between the long-burning fuels and the grasses, where it's like the moisture is helping touch our grasses, but it's not seeping in. It's not actually affecting our long-burning fuels.

That's what I understood from his very complicated email.

Correct. That was a long read.

It's a good read. It's a fun read. Speaking a little bit about that, what's happening is that from last year, the fine fuels i've grown really tall that thatch and then this year we haven't had much moisture in order for that green up to surpass that and then the thousand hour fuels are you're absolutely right they're not it's not absorbing the fuels because there wasn't any ground moisture just soaking up well i'll bring it up tomorrow so hopefully we can all move as one would be nice if i if i may i'd like to make one more comment and it's kind of what you said commissioner

We are in a very unusual situation sometimes here in Lake County because of our altitude and the kind of weather that we do receive. We are affected more in a positive light than the other areas in the region, mostly throughout every single year. So that's just one thing to keep into consideration when we're talking about a regional thing. And again, that's just following the Forest Service and just not having any confusion to our public members when they go in, we go in. But for the most part, they're really on top of, especially Lake County, when it pertains to our situation here currently. Because it affects a whole bunch of stuff. Tourism, all of that, right?

So I just want to make that point. Dan, what do you mean we're affected in a more positive light? we just get more moisture we normally have more snow i mean this is an unusual year right so the regional thing makes sense i was in favor of actually staying in that stage one band until august 1st that way it is kind of a blanket statement out there for

I like the idea of staying aligned with what the Forest Service is. That's where one of the Forest Service is providing seems like the most definitive data. You know, when we get those emails from Chris, it's almost like a different language. They're so in-depth and, you know, like I'm starting to learn how to decipher some of the terminology he's using. But going out with respect to what Sheriff Speckman said, know being not in alignment with the fire service just creates this crazy patchwork with yes no yes no so i think i would uh make a do we should we make a motion on three and then vote you can hear your name you can or just table it you can move to negative yeah um why don't we just table it then i'm gonna make a motion to is there any further discussion sorry yeah i understand um all right uh i will make a motion to table resolution 2026-23 a resolution to rescind the stage one restrictions established under resolution 2026-19 in the unincorporated areas of lake county colorado Two vote. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Table that one for later. Table. So table. So table. Moving on. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. Thank you all. Number four, a public hearing regarding a supplemental budget request from Lake County facilities fleet. Lake County facilities and fleet for a grant match in the amount of $234,109.

dollars and zero cents to fund the capital asset inventory and management plan and so this is a hearing do we have verbiage for hearing i think you just need to open i don't send you any but just open it up for public comment to see if anybody has any comments on it or i would read into the record if you received any comments or not i don't think you did but if you did i would just not do this for the record

Can I make some comments about my stoke for this?

Let's open up the hearing. The hearing on the supplemental budget request for Lake County facilities and fleet is hereby open. The request is a grant match in the amount of $234,109. This is to fund our capital asset inventory plan. There's any comments from the public? Go ahead, Commissioner Lee.

This is one of the big priorities that I feel like we've looked at as a board and had amazing support from staff getting this thing across the finish line. It is one of the least flashy things. You can't really shout it from the rooftops and have anyone understand what's going on. But when we came into these seats a year and a half ago, It's just hard to wrap your head around how many decades of deferred maintenance Lake County is looking at it's those two words keep me up at night and. This is the first and extremely important step as to how do we even wrap our head around how much deferred maintenance is out there, what do we even have what shape is it in what do we need what are we using what aren't we using. You can't just go out and say, hey, that thing's broken, let's go fix it. Because until you prioritize what needs fixing first, what's gonna cost us more money down the road if we don't fix it now? This is an incredibly complicated subject and it's probably a big part of the reason why things have gotten pushed off for so long. So for me, this is a huge step forward in addressing the things that are falling apart in this community. And I don't think we, I personally, I don't think I've done a good enough job expressing to the community how big and important of a step this capital asset inventory and management plan is. And I will try to be better about that moving forward. But this is a hugely important and exciting step forward for Lake County in my view.

Thank you, Commissioner Lee.

make any comments i'm just glad that we're doing this and i know we budgeted for it last year so it makes sense that we would actually follow through on that so it's in the budget it was in last year's budget and we were not allowed to appropriate it before the grant was received so we knew we were going to apply for this grant after some discussions with dola so We were awarded the grant probably two and a half, two and a half, three weeks ago, and they needed us to appropriate it in the budget for this year. And so that's what we're going to send this off to Randy today after St. George gets it recorded, and then they'll actually issue the award. And then we were going to spend the $244,109, kind of a weird number to put out there, But that's what we actually appropriated towards it before. But now we have even more money to actually put towards a plan that will be linked to our accounting software and we'll be able to show each year a five-year outlook of what we've budgeted for these items for the next several years and be able to update that fifth year out every year as we accomplish tasks indefinitely. So we're really excited. really excited, but we did appropriate it last year. We just never spent it once we realized we had the opportunity to ask for a grant that would allow us to do the project fully.

Well, that's great. Thank you, Candice, and everybody that participated. That's really smart, and I would entertain a motion to approve.

I will move to approve. Supplemental budget request from the Lake County facilities and fleet for a grant match in the amount of two hundred thirty four thousand one hundred and nine dollars zero cents on the capital asset inventory and management plan otherwise I Will second that to vote aye aye aye All right go for it let's do this let's fix some stuff

Just so you guys are aware, once we get the awards from DOLA, then we'll work with them to go out to RFP to get the right group of contractors to do the work for us and follow the process for them. Awesome. Thank you.

And so part two of this is number five, discussion and consideration of resolution 2026-24, a resolution of Lake County, Colorado, approving a supplemental budget. Making a supplemental appropriation for fiscal year 2026 for said capital asset inventory and management plan. Again, led by Candace Bryans.

So this is really just to ask you guys to approve the resolution.

Yep.

Oh yeah, agenda item four wasn't a decision. This is the decision. Let's do that again. Yeah, let's do it. All right, my turn. I will make a motion to approve resolution 2026-24. Resolution of Lake county Colorado approving a supplemental budget and making a supplemental appropriation for the fiscal year 2026 for the capital asset inventory and management plan management project sorry.

To vote hi hi hi okay there we go now it's public hearing consideration. Item number six, discussion and consideration of a board appointment to the Lake County Library Board of Trustees led by Brenna Smith, our library director.

Becky Eisen, Deputy Director of Access Services for the library. I'm here in Brenna's place. Yes, we would like to appoint a new board member, Julie Krill, to the library board of trustees.

Okay. You're here to vouch for her as well?

She's an upstanding library patron. All right.

Okay, I will move to appoint Julie Prill to the Lake County Library Board of Trustees.

I will second that. Two vote.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you for serving, Julie, and thanks for coming in, Becky. Item number seven, discussion and consideration of a board appointment to the E911 Authority Board. This would be led by Sheriff Heath Speckman.

Yes, so we've had a vacancy on the E911 Board for the OEM position. So the E911 Board is made up of a representation from the Sheriff's Office, the PD, the Office of Emergency Management, Fire Rescue, and our EMS personnel. So since Claire left, we've bounced around. Temporary spots filled, but now we have Dan Campbell on board as our homeowner's manager director.

And he submitted his letter. I'd love his appointment to the E911 authority to report county measures.

Questions?

All right. He's a good guy. Hanging in there so far. All right. I will make a motion to appoint Dan Campbell to the E911 Authority Board?

Second.

Two vote.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Thank you for serving, Dan. Thanks for that, Sheriff. Thank you. Moving on. Item number eight, discussion and consideration of an access agreement between Lake County and Arkansas River Watershed Collaborative, otherwise known as RWIC, to access certain county-owned lands for the purpose of forest health fuels mitigation projects. This will be led by Bryce Ulrich, our Water and Natural Resources Director. Good morning, Bryce. Good morning.

Thanks, Board. Yeah, so this is just an opportunity for us to add on some county-owned land to an existing funded project that we are supporting with a little bit of grant or match funding this year. So FIRE doesn't care about property lines, so they requested

That's a no-brainer. This is one, if we could just do it subject to legal review. I know I kind of pushed it through air too, but I think it has some indemnification language in there.

Probably want to take a closer look at.

I haven't had a chance to circle back to this one, but I think if the board just does it pending legal review, we can get that done.

Thank you. I appreciate that catch. I know sometimes these things seem like such a slam dunk, and it's like, well, there's a detail in here we need to work out. So thanks. I appreciate your eyes on things, Matt.

Okay. I will move to approve the access agreement between Lake County and Arkansas River Watershed Collaborative, ARBIC, to access certain county-owned lands for the purpose of forest health wheels mitigation projects pending legal review.

I will second that. Two votes. Hi. Hi.

Hi. So moved. Thanks, Gordon. Yeah. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Bryce. Sorry, I got your pronunciation wrong. It's all good.

Sounds very cool. My girls are going to have to spell it out for everyone the rest of their lives. And we've got to deal with our family.

A little ridicule will help me remember. OK. Item number nine, discussion and consideration of the Board of County Commissioners strategic priorities. This will be led by our County Manager, Candace Bryant.

Thank you all. So we did a work session and you guys gave me some feedback on the strategic priorities. A, we hated the photos that Jola gave us, so I updated those. If you still hate them, you can let me know. I'll fix them. And then we asked for the strategic priority number five, for that title to be changed to focus really more on public safety public health um DHS like just you know with the well-being of our community so I took a stab at a different uh terminology if you hate it you can also let me know right now and we can approve this pending any changes that you'd like to see um and then uh took the section underneath that and kind of redid the summary of it to talk just a little bit more about the overall well-being, public health, public safety of our community. So those changes are incorporated and it's in your packet with those changes. So asking for you guys to accept it if you do or if you want something changed, we can accept it pending any changes. It was hard to find pictures that actually worked for what we wanted. They're great photos.

Okay. I'm going to be honest. I did not have time to go over this since Friday. And I'm so sorry. Do you want your phone up? No, no, no. I have it. I carried it around with me everywhere I went, but I did not have the time to actually go through it. So I would request that we tangle it. But if you all have gone over it and feel good about it, I...

I give them one.

We went through it pretty in depth with Randy and when Dola was here. And we had some, it wasn't a huge list of changes. I don't think that we had requested of this.

The last work session. Yeah. Because there weren't a lot of changes. But I took you one more time, that's fine.

I felt like it looked great, especially if this is something the public can access and see where we want to steer things, what our prioritizations are. But if we table this, there's not really any actual repercussions. This is more of a guiding document that's like community outreach. And if you would like more time to go over it just to make sure there's no...

I mean, we can approve it. We can approve it and always change it. Absolutely. This is not like a supplemental where we're trying to do it quarterly or something. I'm just saying I wasn't prepared. I'm sorry.

If we table this, is that going to hinder any of the work or change the priorities? Or do you need us to give you some guidance? Because it looks good to me.

It's great. I'm just saying I haven't. I would probably just put it on the next meeting and try to get it done then. We're going to be working with staff to work on the mission, vision, values, and culture piece. And we just want to make sure before we embark on that, which that should be supporting the work in this document, we just want to make sure that you guys are like, these are for sure the priorities we're going to move forward with and the task we want staff working on, I think, ahead of doing that work. So I might just put it on the next meeting. regular which would be next week, if that gives you all the time to review it.

Does that feel okay? I don't want to hold up staff work.

Absolutely. It's next Tuesday.

Great. I would love one more week. That's okay with everybody? Sure. Thanks, guys.

Okay. Sorry, let me get the agenda back up so I can say this right. OK, I will make a motion to table the agenda item number nine, the consideration of board adopting. Table agenda item number nine, discussion and consideration of the Board of Commissioners strategic priorities.

Seconded. Two of them.

All right.

Strategic priorities document acceptance is tabled. Moves us to number 10, county attorney updates led by Mr. Matt Hobbs.

So I attended the county attorney's conference last week. I think you guys were at CCI that week, last week as well. There's a bunch of legislative updates that were provided. I think you guys probably got the same speech that the county attorneys did. So at some point, I'll be going through those. And when I get a moment, sort of coming back to the board of what we need to do or don't do. There's some robust discussion on massage parlors, for example.

It's not a pressing issue in the county, but...

They're like two counties.

Exactly, which apparently spurns a lot of legislation, like every year, because it just became a trafficking component that's associated with it. So, you know, once I have a chance to digest all that, we'll the massage parlors, a lot of the state mandate stuff is like, what if we don't do it? There's really no penalty, right, if you don't do it. So that was certainly a discussion amongst some of the county attorneys. And there's no money to do it.

It's like a huge enforcement thing with no money attached.

So that'll be a decision for you all to make on some of this stuff, but I'll bring that back to you. We have our first land use trial on Monday, so that's been occupying Fairbanks, Montana next Monday. That's a full day trial on a tiny home out in the neighborhood. And we've filed three additional land use complaints last week, so really three more to move forward with from the community planning development. So that's increasingly occupying a fair chunk of my time along with everything else. You know, we're going to have an executive session later, so on that issue, I don't know if you guys have any questions on anything, but that's probably it for update in terms of where we're at.

Matt, how are the properties that you're pursuing selected?

I let CPD do that on making those calls. They have a list of properties they've tried to work with for years with numerous notices being sent out and just either being ignored or no efforts moving forward to compliance. those owners, they refer them on to the county attorney's office. It's usually not coming to me first. It's usually, you know, sometimes it's a couple years that they've been trying to work with some property owners.

Thank you, Matt. Thanks. Next on the agenda is our County Manager updates, led by Candace Bryans.

So I've only got a few things on here. Josh and I met with Colleen and our ANA last week and kind of reviewed some preliminary numbers from them. And they're just finalizing a few last items related to the cost of a Sally Port alongside of, you know, who would be flipping the cords. So we'll be getting some numbers out. to you guys and then circle back to have the discussion about move board or not move board, but do want to let you know that we've kind of got those numbers pending. I think I just got an email from them. I haven't got to read yet this morning. And Josh and I also have a call with the USDA. I think it's on Friday. On Friday to discuss the changing of our congressionally directed spending funds. We did kind of flag for them that we might be looking to change the project and really try, if we're gonna use that money for this project, really try to get that done. Because I only have till the end of this year to use it. Or start using it. That's what a little bit feels like, but that's okay. We're gonna do it. We're gonna have a plan and make something happen. So just letting you know that those things are coming up. I'm working also this week to work on requesting a reduction in We have $500,000 of underfunded courthouse grant money that has a $1.5 million match. And even though the $3.575 million from the USDA could be the match to that, we're going to ask for a reduction in that match. So even if for some reason we did not do the Sally Port and did not use that congressionally-directed spending, we could at least have that money to do something for the courts. So we're going to be getting that together and trying to get that submitted in the next week or two to reduce that grant match amount. If we decide to move forward with this project, once we've got some numbers back for you guys, we will likely be going back to the courts. The more money the courts gives us, the more we can do to improve the condition of the courts. So even if for some reason you guys said, hey, we don't know that we would flip the direction of the courts because of the cost of it right now, there is the opportunity that once we start the project, if they see some progress, we go present again and say, hey, we're in the process of this project. Would you guys grant us more underfunded courts money? I would think we'd have a better chance of being awarded if they see that we've taken the first grant that we have and actually started work towards that. So I wanted to flag that for you. I'm not sure if you're all aware or not, So I want to mention that the DA's office came back and gave us a supplemental request. We initially declined to up their budget. And I do have a conversation this week with some of the county managers from the other counties who fund the DA alongside of Eagle Sun and Clear Creek. just to kind of see where things have shaken out with their boards. I know that I believe Eagle was discussing it this week, Summit, I think they had some conversations, just to get a cohesive feel of where those other counties at were pretty small. And so us giving pushback if no one else is going to is a little more challenging. So just want to see where everybody else is shaking out in terms of what are they thinking. I know we have some concerns with their request. with the budget that was approved. This request means that they are already deficit spending into reserves and we know that they had made some accounting issues in terms of keeping the correct amount of reserve. So this means they're already deficit spending into a reserve that was already not correct. so i i think you know one of the things we came out of our our last budget approval discussion with them was for them to come back and do some presentations for us and and kind of you know give us what is their plan for recouping their reserve um and how are they going to address these shortfalls other than you know us increasing funding where we've had to cut on our own and i don't think those Presentations have happened. So I think they're just some concerns I have so I want to flag for you that that will be coming up I'm gonna do a little bit more like work, but I'll be presenting You know that that request was a little more information for you all but do you want to go ahead and flag?

You can get it on your radar that that has been a request to us Yeah, I saw in that email from them and that request it was like, you know our ask was like 10% of roughly the average of what Summit and Eagle counties asks was you know and we were like 23 or 26k and they're like you know just shy of 200 or a little over 200. one of the things that jumped out at me though and why i would really like to have a presentation for them was that some of the ftes they were looking at funding with this seemed like things that would really help out with possibly with our sheriff's department here and city police as well um or could potentially i don't know the intricacies of how the the collaboration works between these different groups you know but uh it was something i thought would be really valuable to have a little bit more discussion or clarity on and um i think that was about all oh and then yeah i want does the da's office have their own finance department and that is sort of whereby we make question was of like if they've made missteps like this usually just throwing money at something and without fixing the root cause of it means it could happen again and that's what you know I kind of would have an issue with everything else seemed like this could be potentially valuable for us here some value we would get out of it if the other counties were on the board yeah but um I'll get more information we'll definitely have a work session because I I think that if the DA is asking

change in their budget they should come and present that um to you all so you can ask those questions directly of them rather than me just presenting the supplemental that was emailed so i'll circle back and say hey like presentation if if you guys think about it if there are any like specific questions you have that you want me to relate to them if you would just email me you know individually of course So I can make sure they're prepared to show up with some answers and to be ready for that. But do want to flag for you that request came in and it's going to be coming up in our next supplementals quarterly. So just want to put that out there.

Candace. Yeah. Can I, I will email you, but when it comes to working with the other counties about working as a group to respond to these supplement request i just had a thought for the future where i think my impression is that a lot of the da's costs come from housing needs for their employees and housing costs different amounts in the different counties so if there's a way that we could potentially look at dividing the cost by cost of housing within those counties, it might be more beneficial to the smaller counties like Lake and Clear Creek.

I believe we provide a place for them to stay. I don't know what the other counties do in terms of where they're staying. So for us, that doesn't necessarily factor into what they're asking for and the budget increase request that she gave us last year and this year were more related to additional staff. And I think that's what this request is, but I can definitely ask everyone else what are they doing in terms of where are they staying and how is that being afforded. And who's covering what when it comes to that. And I'm pretty sure EGLE provides them a space to stay.

I think some of it goes through the DA.

And that's why I would be curious.

Because it's pretty wild to have such a tiny county. I mean, obviously, we paid less already in terms of the distribution. I'm just really curious about how the distribution is determined. And if there's not a way to change it, then but I just want more information about that. Okay.

Thank you.

I think those are all the updates I have for now.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Candace.

Thank you.

And next month, I have everybody send their updates, and I'll do them more often.

Okay, next on the agenda is item number 12, executive session pursuant to Colorado Revised Statute 24-6-4024B&E. Colorado Revised Statutes for the purpose of receiving legal advice from the county attorney regarding claims asserted by a former county employee arising from the employee's separation from employment, determining positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategies for negotiations, and instructing negotiators concerning a demand for compensation and potential settlement of such claims, and discussing potential litigation litigation strategy and related legal considerations. No formal actions or decisions will be taken during the executive session. Can we get a motion to move into executive session?

I'll move to go into executive session. Do I have to do the whole thing? No, since you just did it.

I will second that.

To vote?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. The motion has been made and seconded. We will now go into executive session pursuant to CRS 24-6-402 for the purpose stated in the motion. No adoption of any proposed policy, position, resolution, rule, regulation, or formal action will occur during this executive session. The executive session will be electronically recorded as required by law unless the county attorney certifies that this matter constitutes privileged attorney-client communication and therefore is not subject to the recording requirements.

Mr. President, is just everyone in here?

Is that right?

Yes. Okay.

Thank you, Andy. Sure.

Pursuant to CRS 24-6402, applies the county attorney certify that the next portion of this executive session constitutes a conference with legal counsel for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions related to Zoe Bergstrom and her claims against the county. Accordingly, no record or minutes are required to be kept of this portion. The recording may be stopped.

The board is now out of executive session and has returned to open session. For the record, the board discussed only matters identified in the motion to enter into executive session and no formal action was taken. member believes discussion would be on the scope of the motion please state that concern for the record now okay no concerns if there is any direction to staff or motion related to the matter discussed in the executive session now would be a good time to do so none Moving on to the consent agenda.

So my turn? I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Seconded.

To vote.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. This is a reminder that all packet materials for agenda items are available upon request. Please subscribe or email notifications please visit lakecountycolorado.gov slash list dash aspx this concludes our special meeting the lake county board of county commissioners on june 9th 2026 at 10 52 a.m thank you everybody thank you listeners thank you staff